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Sound Devices in Poetry

Poetry Out Loud: Reading Poetry

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•         The same skills you use to understand prose you use to understand poetry.

One Difference:

•         Poetry is intended for the ear as well as for the eye.

–        Not until you are able to read aloud can you really appreciate all that poetry has to offer.

Characteristics of poetry such as figures of speech, sensory imagery, rhythm, and rhyme become more forceful when they are heard.

This is why poetry should be read out loud.


But How Should it be Read?

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Poetry should be read aloud in a way that brings out the meaning and feeling intended by the poet.

Look at the next four poems we are covering.

•         They are different in appearance

•         The length of their lines varies

•         They have different themes

•         They have different rhythms

Before you can effectively read any one of these poems aloud, you must know what mood the poet intended and what the lines mean.

In other words, you have to know what the poet is talking about.

Your voice must reflect what is appropriate to the meaning of  the words. 

If the meaning of one line is not completed until the next line, you would not pause at the end of the first line anymore than you would say, “I am going (pause” downtown.”

As you study a poem, take time to read it aloud.

•         A careful reading, attention to details such as:

–        Word choice

–        Tone

–        Punctuation

•         And a little practice will allow you to communicate the meaning.


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Rhythm & Rhyme

Rhythm

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•         Definition: The arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables in speech and writing.
    –        Rhythm in a poem may
•          have a single, dominant beat
•         It may be varied within the poem to fit different situation and moods
•         It may be casual and irregular like speech



Rhythm in Language = Rhythm in Poetry

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We stress, or place emphasis on words in a sentence in order to convey the meaning.  Words also have stressed and unstressed syllables, meaning we pronounce them a certain way by emphasizing certain sounds.  When these stressed and unstressed syllables are arranged to create a pattern in poetry, it makes a distinct rhythm.  We mark the stressed and unstressed syllables, and then name the rhythm based on the pattern it follows.
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Poetry has Feet:
A combination of an unstressed and stressed syllable makes up a foot. So if there are 10 syllables in a line, there are five feet.
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We then count the feet to find the meter:
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Iambic Pentameter is a very common meter.  What it means is that the pattern of emphasized syllables is: unstressed stressed.  And each line has 5 feet, or 10 syllables. Here are some examples below.
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Rhyme

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•         Definition: The repetition of word-ending sounds, the repetition of accented vowels sounds plus any succeeding sounds
–        First / Burst
–        Delightful / Spiteful


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Rhyme Scheme:

•         Definition: When sounds at the end of lines (end rhymes) are arranged in a pattern within the poem

–        One may describe a rhyme scheme by representing sounds at ends of lines with letters of the alphabet.
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Internal rhyme:

•         Definition: A rhyme occurring within a line
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"The Addressing of Cats," by T.S. Eliot

T.S. Eliot

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T. S. Eliot has long been famous for complex, highly symbolic poetry concerned with the human condition in twentieth-century society.

Who would write a book of rhythmical poems about cats?

•         Not the T. S. Eliot whose poetry stirred so much controversy, filled as it was with the pessimistic frustration and the spiritual shallowness her perceived in modern people.

•         Right?

But “The Ad-dressing of Cats” shows his lighter side.

•         Because it is the last in the series of fifteen whimsical cat poems that make up Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, the poem begins with the speaker reminding the reader that he or she has already read about several cats.

“Old Possum” is Eliot’s nickname

Inspired: Cats


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In the collection, Eliot introduces us to memorable Cats:

  Old Gumbie Cat.
•         Her real name is Jennyanydots
•         She spends her nights trying to teach good manners and household dills to mice and cockroaches.
•         She spends her days simply sitting.

Growltiger lives the exciting life of a ship’s cat.
•         He gets into hair-raising adventures everywhere he goes.

Skimbleshanks runs a passenger train practically single handedly.

Every cat in the collection has a distinct personality, pursuing interests and activities very much its own, “like you and me,” Eliot says in “The Ad-dressing of Cats.”

The poem illustrates skillful use of regular rhythm and rhyme.

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•         The feet = Iambic beat
        –        You’ve read of several kinds of Cat
•         There are four feet to a line.
•         The rhyme scheme is:
        –        AABBCCDDEEFF

Eliot focuses on sound in his cat poems.
•         End rhyme
•         Why is the word addressing printed as Ad-dressing?


Imagery

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•         The images are chiefly visual and the language is literal, with the great exception of the personified cat.

–        What details tell us that the cats are personified?


Other uses of sound devices:

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Other uses of sound:

Alliteration:

•         A repetition of initial and stressed sounds at the beginning of words or in accented syllables.

–        Alliteration can be used to created melody, establish mood, call attention to certain words, and point up similarities and contrasts.

Assonance:

•         Definition: The repetition of vowel sounds followed by different consonant sounds in stressed words or syllables.

Consonance:

•         Definition: The repetition of identical consonant sounds that are preceded by different vowel sounds.


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"There Will Come Soft Rains," by Sarah Teasdale

Sarah Teasdale

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Sara Teasdale said she wanted the reader of her poems “to feel and not think” while reading them, to have a response that was first and foremost, emotional. 

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"There Will Come Soft Rains"

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

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Discussion Questions

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•         What is mankind in danger of doing?
•         According to the poem, what will the natural world be like without humans?
•         Point out examples of imagery.

Extending:
•         The mood of the poem is one of quietness.
•         Find a word to describe its tone. 
        –        Do you agree wit the speaker’s attitude toward the place of human beings in the world?
Rhyme & Rhythm
•         What is the rhyme scheme of the poem?
        –        Aa bb cc dd ee ff = Couplets
•         How many stressed syllables does each line have?
        –        4
•         Generally, the first stressed syllable in each line is the second or third one.  But unlike “The Ad-dressing of Cats,” this poem has an exception.
•         What lines are the exception?
        –        Lines 5 & 6 begin with an accented syllable. 

        –        The reversal is for effect to cause the reader to take new account of the old rhythm as it begins  again in lines 7 & 8.




About the Poem from: Source: Poetry for Students, ©2013 Gale Cengage. All Rights Reserved.

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In 1950, noted science fiction writer Ray Bradbury published his popular collection of futuristic short stories called The Martian Chronicles.

•         That book contains a story called “There Will Come Soft Rains,” and it is not by accident that the title is the same as Sara Teasdale’s poem published in Flame and Shadow thirty years earlier, in 1920, by MacMillan.

Bradbury borrowed the name directly from the poet’s work
•         He based his story on a theme similar to the poem’s, the senseless destruction of humankind by their own hands through war.
–        In the story, a talking house is left confused and devastated by the loss of its masters, who vanished in an atomic blast.
–        At one point, the house, lonely for its mistress, reads aloud one of the dead woman’s favorite poems—“There Will Come Soft Rains” by Sara Teasdale.
Teasdale’s poem is a response to her disdain for and disillusionment over World War I.
•         When the United States became involved in the conflict, Teasdale turned some of her creative attention to writing anti-war lyrics, and when this poem appeared in Flame and Shadow, it carried the subtitle “War Time.”
The poem addresses the atrocity of battle from the perspective of nature
•         Of birds and frogs and trees whose lives will go on even if human beings obliterate themselves from the planet.
–        It is interesting to note that in Bradbury’s short story based on the poem, nature and nonhuman objects do not fare quite as well, eventually succumbing to their own deaths without people around to support them.
•         But Teasdale takes perhaps a more cynical approach in that nature will not only endure but will carry on without even noticing “that we were gone.”

•         Source: Poetry for Students, ©2013 Gale Cengage. All Rights Reserved.


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"The Rainy Day," by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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•         “best loved” and “most quoted American poet”

•         He wrote on topics ranging from the sublime and profound to folklore and homely wisdom.


"The Rainy Day"

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.                     5

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.                 10

Be still, sad heart!  And cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
They fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.              15

Use of Alliteration

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•         A repetition of initial and stressed sounds at the beginning of words or in accented syllables.

–        Alliteration can be used to created melody, establish mood, call attention to certain words, and point up similarities and contrasts

•         What initial sound is repeated more than any other in “The Rainy Day?”

•         Give other examples of alliteration.


Discussion Questions

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•         What are the symptoms of this rainy day?

•         Stanza 2 is almost a duplicate of stanza 1, but there are important differences.  For what are “the day,” “the vine,” and “dead leaves” metaphors?

•         How is the message in stanza 3 different from stanzas 1 and 2? Who is addressed?

•         Rephrase stanza 3, line for line.

•         Tell why you agree or disagree with line 14.


"The Bells," by Edgar Allan Poe

Type of Work and Date of Publication

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•         "The Bells" is a four-stanza lyric poem that first appeared in 1849 in the November issue of Sartain's Union Magazine of Literature and Art.

•         Poe is said to have sold the poem for $15.

•         The first book to publish the poem was said to be The Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe, printed in London in 1888 by John H. Ingram.


Inspiration for the Poem

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•         Poe wrote an early, shorter version of "The Bells" while living in a cottage in the village of Fordham, now part of New York City but then outside the city limits.
–        It is said that the nurse of Poe’s wife suggested the first lines of the poem
–        Supposedly, she and Poe drew inspiration from bell ringing at nearby St. John's College, now Fordham University.
–        Poe often walked its campus, and he befriended the Jesuit priests who operated the college.
–        Some writers have suggested that another bell provided the inspiration–the bell at the Bleeker Street Presbyterian Church, for example, and that at St. Mark's in the Bowery.
–        In the end, though, it was the tintinnabulation of Poe's gray matter that he attempted to express in the poem.

Assessment of the Poem

•         Some critics regard the poem as masterly; other critics regard it as shallow and sing-song.
•         What do you think?


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Themes:

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Theme: Death ultimately triumphs over life (or, life is a journey toward death).

•         The bells ring joyfully in youth.
            –        However, even as they ring, death lurks in the background.


•         For example, in Stanza 1, the narrator hears the tinkling sleigh bells at night (Line 5), meaning the darkness of death (night) is present at the beginning of life.
•         In Stanza 2, the bells ringing in celebration of the wedding resound "through the balmy air of night," meaning the darkness of death is present in young adulthood.
•         In Stanza 3, the bells ring "in the startled ear of night," meaning:
–         the darkness of death is present in middle age and later, when fire begins to consume the exuberance of youth
•         In Stanza 4, the bells ring "in the silence of the night," meaning death has triumphed over life.

The Bells as Death's Accomplice
•         In the first stanza, the bells keep time in a "Runic rhyme," a mysterious rhyme that pleases the ear.
–        Thus, the bells become death's accomplice, marking the passing of time–each second, hour, day, year–with beautiful sounds that continue until life ends and the king of the ghouls tolls the death knell (Stanza 4).
–        The ghouls, demons who feed on the flesh of the dead, are happy to welcome death's victims.
–        Their happiness mockingly echoes the joy expressed in the first stanza.
•         Moreover, the bells that the ghoul tolls also peal with a "Runic rhyme," like the bells in Stanza 1.
–        That characteristic of the bells is the same one that celebrated youth and marriage in Stanzas 1 and 2.
–        From the ghouls' perspective:
•          young people are the future food of the ghouls.
•         And married people produce new youths.
All the while, the bells keep time, counting each passing moment.

Alliteration, Assonance, Consonance, and Onomatopoeia

Assonance

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Onomatopoeia

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Onomatopoeia and Alliteration

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•         Onomatopoeia and alliteration occur throughout the poem, helping to support the musicality of the poem.
–        Onomatopoeia, a figure of speech in which a word imitates a sound, occurs in such words as tinkling, jingling, chiming, shriek, twanging, clanging, and clang.
–        Alliteration, in which words repeat consonant sounds, occurs in such groups as "bells, bells, bells" and "tinkle, tinkle, tinkle."
Other examples of alliteration are the following:
•         What a world of merriment their melody foretells! (Stanza 1, third line)
•         What a world of happiness their harmony foretells! (Stanza 2, third line)
•         What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells! (Stanza 3, third line)


"The Spider Holds a Silver Ball," by Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson

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Emily Dickinson

Dickinson’s poems often strike a lonely or despondent note

•         This makes her a different from the stoic New England characteristics of other poetry being written during her time.

Her work is more like Robert Frost, who came a century later.
•http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xs8a1r_emily-dickinson-biographical-sketch_creation#.URuWRfJ37K0


"The Spider Holds a Silver Ball"

The spider holds a Silver Ball
In unperceived Hands--
And dancing softly to Himself
His Yarn of Pearl--unwinds--

He plies from Nought to Nought--
In unsubstantial Trade--
Supplants our Tapestries with His--
In half the period--

An Hour to rear supreme
His Continents of Light--
Then dangle from the Housewife's Broom--
His Boundaries--forgot--

Sound Devices

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Tricky Language:

•         “He plies from Nought to Nought”:

–        He moves from nothing to nothing

Class Discussion Questions and Notes:


Terms to Know:

Rhythm
Rhyme
Rhyme Scheme
Internal Rhyme
Alliteration
Assonance
Consonance
Onomatopoeia
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